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Barron Calls Brooklyn Democratic Gathering Too Scripted

Councilman Charles Barron in May. (Photo: Robert Stolarik for The New York Times)

The weeks following the primary election represent the season for political parties in New York City to convene their county committee meetings. Few voters even know that they occur. But these gatherings of the official representatives of the party — represented by the foot soldiers of the party, Assembly district by Assembly district — are mandated by state law.

They are typically predictable, often perfunctory and with little in the way of spontaneity.

The meeting of the Kings County Democratic Committee on Monday night was expected to have all those characteristics. However, Monday night was also the first county committee attended by City Councilman Charles Barron.

Mr. Barron, who represents the East New York section of Brooklyn and is no one’s shrinking violet, attended for the first time. His wife, Inez Barron, recently won the Democratic primary for an Assembly seat and attended for the first time, too.

From nearly the beginning of the meeting, at St. Francis College, it was clear that Mr. Barron would play a significant role in the degree to which the script would be followed without challenge.

And indeed, these are meetings that are highly choreographed and scripted, down to which district leader will move to, say, accept a committee report and who will second the motion (the speakers are prepared in advance, and given printed scripts).

The first hint that it was not to be a business-as-usual gathering came shortly after the Pledge of Allegiance (that was to become virtually the only part of the meeting that went according to plan), after the group voted to accept the five members who would serve on the party’s credentials committee. Mr. Barron hopped to his feet and asked if he could be the sixth member.

The chairman of the proceedings, State Senator Martin Connor, said that it would require an addition action of the body to increase the size of the committee. Eventually, Mr. Barron was added.

Then came the motion to adopt the rules of the committee, usually a per forma action that defines the bylaws under which the party to operates. Mr. Barron insisted that he had never seen the rules and that they should have been made public long before Monday’s meeting.

Mr. Connor responded that the rules could be viewed on the Internet, if Mr. Barron desired. Mr. Barron suggested that the rules not be adopted until everyone had a chance to review them. But Mr. Connor said that, under state law, the party could not legally function without the adoption of the rules.

If Mr. Barron prevailed, the ever-testy Mr. Connor pointed out, the party would not be able to spend money for candidates in the fall election and it could not even place its candidates on the ballot (the rules were then adopted).

The back-and-forth debate went on regarding topic after topic. By the time the meeting of some 250 people had ended some 90 minutes later, Mr. Barron had become the most vocal of a handful of Democratic leaders who were complaining that the meeting was too scripted, too bereft of any real discussion or input.

“This is ridiculous,” Mr. Barron said, following the motion to adjourn. “I’ve never been to a more restrictive meeting in my life. It insults the intelligence of everyone here that you have such a scripted meeting.”

Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, the Brooklyn Democratic leader, seemed to take it in stride on Monday night. “There is always a small group that tries to make it interesting,” he said. “But if you look at our achievements, we’re doing great things as a Democratic organization in Brooklyn.”

I have to say that Charles Barron is not one of my favorite politicans but he’s absolutely right. Why are we not given copies of the rules or even given the web address to read them? The meeting was joke and so scripted it insulted my intelligence. Only 181 Members were at there and Vito held 701 Proxies. That’s a total of 881 members and there are how many members of the KCDCC? It should be manditory that in order to be on the KCDCC you must attend the meeting.

Go, Charles Barron. Regardless of whether you agree with his politics on many issues, he is totally on target in ending the meaninglessness of these highly scripted meetings. All of these county committees need a serious shake-up. In fact, if we want to clean up Albany, these shake-ups are probably mandatory, we need to turn the vast majority of these rascals out, and open the process to the people so they can actually have a voice.

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